Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Does Trump Plan to Nuke Davos?

The annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, will be choking with the kind of people who disdain Donald Trump and genuinely regard his presidency as a menace to the planet. In other words: exactly the kind of party Trump loves to crash, writes Politico.

WEF organizers had been lobbying for months for high-level administration participation, though they hadn’t been counting on more than a few Cabinet secretaries.

What planners didn’t know was that some West Wing advisers were arguing that Davos would be the perfect venue for Trump to unleash an especially gassy stink bomb aimed at ideas — free trade deals, a more integrated global regulatory system, and all manner of liberal pieties cherished by global elites — he deplores.

This year's conference will be held January 23-26.

Will Trump go total anti-trade and 18th century protectionist in Davos? The odds are 50/50.

Reuters is reporting that Canada is increasingly convinced that Trump will pull out of NAFTA.

Sources said they expected Trump would make his move at about the same time that negotiators from the United States, Canada and Mexico meet in late January for the sixth and penultimate round of talks to modernize the treaty.

If Trump does plan to pull the plug on NAFTA, it is difficult to think he is going to Davos for any other reason than to nuke free traders.